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Peter scratched his head, and said, after some hesitation: “Well, I wish for the most beautiful and costly glass-works in the whole Black Forest, together with suitable belongings for it, and money to keep it going.”

“Nothing else?” inquired the little man in an apprehensive manner; “nothing else, Peter?”

“Well, you might add a horse and carriage to all this.”

“Oh, you stupid Charcoal Pete!” cried the little man, and threw his glass pipe in a fit of anger at a large pine tree, so that it broke into a hundred pieces. “Horses? Wagons? Intellect, I tell you, intellect, a sound human understanding and foresight, you should have wished for, and not horses and wagons. Well, don’t look so sad; we will see that you don’t come to much harm by it, for your second wish was not such a bad one. Glass-works will support both man and master; and if you had wished for foresight and understanding with it, wagons and horses would have followed as a matter of course.”

“But, Herr Schatzhauser,” returned Peter, “I have one more wish left, and if you think that intellect is such a desirable thing, why, I might wish for it now.”

“Not so. You will get into many difficulties when you will rejoice that you still have one wish left. And so you had better now start on your way home. Here,” said the little man, drawing a purse from his pocket, “are two thousand guldens, and it should be enough, so don’t come back to me begging for more money, or I should have to hang you up to the highest pine tree. Three days ago old Winkfritz, who had the glass-works in the valley, died. Go there to-morrow early, and make a suitable bid for the business. Conduct yourself well, be diligent, and I will visit you occasionally and assist you with word and deed, as you did not wish for understanding. But–and I say this to you in all seriousness–your first wish was a bad one. Take care, Peter, how you run to the tavern; no one ever received any good thereby.”

While thus speaking, the little man had produced a second pipe of alabaster glass, filled it with crushed pine cones, and lighted it by holding a large burning-glass in the sun. When he had done this, he shook Peter’s hand in a friendly manner, accompanied him a short distance on his way, giving him some valuable advice, meanwhile blowing out thicker and thicker volumes of smoke, and finally disappearing in a cloud of smoke, that, as if from genuine Dutch tobacco, curled slowly about the tops of the pine trees.

When Peter arrived at home, he found his mother in a state of great alarm about him, for the good woman could believe nothing else but that her son had been drawn as a soldier. He, however, was in a very happy mood, and told her how he had met a good friend in the forest, who had advanced him money to undertake a better business than that of charcoal burning. Although his mother had lived in this hut for thirty years, and was as much accustomed to the sight of sooty faces as every miller’s wife is to the flour on her husband’s face, yet she was vain enough when Peter held out the prospect of a more brilliant life, to despise her early condition, and said: “Yes, as mother of a man who owns the glassworks, I am somewhat better than neighbor Grete and Bete, and for the future I shall take a front seat in the church among respectable people.”

Peter soon concluded a bargain with the heirs for the glass-works. He retained the workmen whom he found there, and made glass by day and night. In the beginning he was much pleased with the business. He was accustomed to walk proudly about the works, with his hands in his pockets, looking into this and that, advising here and there, over which his workmen laughed not a little; but his great delight was to see the glass blown, and he often attempted this work himself, forming the most singular shapes out of the molten mass. But before long he tired of the business, and spent only an hour a day at the works; then only an hour in two days, and finally he went only once a week, so that his workmen did what they pleased.